House Passes Bill On Computer Abuses

June 4, 1986|The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Heeding warnings that computer crime ``will be the crime wave of the next decade,`` the House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill making the use of computers for some cases of fraud or theft a federal felony.

The measure covers the use of a computer in another state or one owned by the federal government, a bank or a securities dealer, even in the same state.

The bill also makes it a crime to break into any of those computers and cause ``malicious damage,`` such as destroying programs or making the computer unavailable to its legitimate users.

If action of this sort, either one incident or several, costs the victim at least $1,000 to repair in a one-year period, the crime can be punished as a felony, with a five-year prison sentence. If the losses are smaller, the crime will be treated as a misdemeanor.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. William J. Hughes, a New Jersey Democrat, was approved unanimously by voice vote. The bill is expected to pass the Senate, where it is sponsored by Sens. Paul Laxalt of Nevada and Paul S. Trible of Virginia, both Republicans. The Reagan administration also supports the bill, on which the Justice Department worked actively with the sponsors.

A majority of states now have their own computer crime laws. The federal bill, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, is designed to supplement state efforts and fill in the gaps by providing federal jurisdiction in particular circumstances. State efforts to prosecute crimes that occur across state lines, for example, are often hampered by complicated extradition procedures.

The bill the House passed Tuesday is part of a bipartisan effort to deal with new technology and its implications for crime, personal privacy and national security.

A computer crime bill that became law last year made it a felony to make unauthorized use of a computer to obtain classified information that might harm the national interest.